Ceterus Networks today announced a new member of its Ethernet-over-TDM family of products, focusing its UTS810 Ethernet Access Platform at wireless network backhaul, as well as for schools, medical centers and other distributed enterprises needing 5 Megabits per second to 10 Mbps connectivity.

The new platform is an Ethernet-only version of Ceterus’ technology, which bonds multiple T-1s into fatter pipes to carry Ethernet traffic with guaranteed Quality of Service, said Jim Tindall, Vice President of Product Management at Ceterus Networks. Other Ceterus platforms deliver multi-service access, integrating existing voice and legacy data signals at the customer premises.

“What we have found is that there is also a very distinct application for Ethernet only, where existing services are already taken care of or aren’t important,” said Tindall. “The UTS810 has been cost optimized for those applications.”

There is a growing need among wireless carriers to expand their backhaul capabilities to handle next-generation networks that deliver higher speed data to mobile users, he added. Using Ethernet transport enables those carriers to make more efficient use of backhaul facilities and therefore cut the cost they are paying.

“Next-gen services are very bandwidth intensive,” Tindall said. “All of the data services are going to drive a lot more backhaul demand. Wireless carriers also have the phenomenon of push-to-talk and seamless roaming between wireless and IP – although they are voice, they look like data from backhaul perspective.”

Using individual T1 lines for backhaul is less efficient, he adds.

“You are looking at individual lines, and you may not have the same level of utilization across the lines -- one may be under, one over,” he explained.

The core of Ceterus’ technology is virtual concatenation of T1 lines, based on new ITU standards that uses a Generic Framing Procedure (GFP) wrapper that is a low overhead approach to VC that call also ensure QoS, Tindall said. That is critical for the connections between base station controllers and base stations in a wireless network.

In addition, Ceterus uses Link Capacity Adjustment Scheme, another part of the standard, to allow the concatenated pipe to shrink or grow as services are provisioning or decommissioned or in case of service outages. “With a single T1, if it goes down, you are out of service,” Tindall said. “With LCAS, I may lose capacity on the bonded service, but the service can stay up. And QoS will prioritize how the traffic goes through.”

Schools are a particular target for this system because they are dispersed and more likely to have access to T1s, and because they have E-rate dollars to spend getting connections. “This is a cost effective way to use that money,” he said.